Bernard slept through until around 11.00. We were a bit worried his medication might not take for a 3rd time. I gave it to to him in 2 parts, and both stayed down. When he finally woke up, he just wanted to go, so it looked like he was recovered. We wanted to be sure, so were a bit cautious about what food and drink we gave him. Josee had cooked up another superb lunch for us all. It was spare ribs with some very interesting vegetable dishes, their home grown, just in season beetroot and chips of course.
Late in the day I drove us to Enghien in Gilbert's Peugeot 206 and we looked at some of the local shops. We wanted to visit the local park again but decided we wouldn't really see much before closing time. It was also starting to get cool and rain. The bonus was we found another brilliant patisserie. We returned home for an early light supper, before going out visiting.
We visited Patrice, Josee and Gilbert's oldest son, and family. They live about 30 minutes away in and old cafe. It is old on the outside but new on the inside. Patrice and his brothers along with help from Gilbert and his brothers renovated the cafe. They gutted the downstairs area completely and from the pictures I saw, it looked like a huge amount of work. Patrice offered me a Jupiler beer which I accepted. It reminded me of XXXX, although probably not that bad. Apparently Maes, Jupiler and Stella Artois are the standard beers and as Gilbert says, all the rest are beautiful.
On the way back we visited Ludovic and his family. They live a townhouse that has also had some remodeling done. I think it must be quite common in Belgium to renovate the old buildings made of brick and stone. Ludovic offered me a Duvel but I declined, but made a mental note to try it at some point.
Tuesday - Parc D'Enghien again (7/7)
Bernard slept soundly all night an late into the morning. Josee and Gilbert had gone to golf so we had a slow start again. We left before lunch and arrived in Enghien to check out a few shops, before picking a cafe for lunch. It was fairly full so we figured it must be OK, and it was. After that we cruised a few more shops, and then headed for the Parc. We visited some of the bits that we had missed the first time. There was chill wind blowing most of the time. It was OK when the sun was shining but we had light showers coming through all the time. The trees provided enough shelter. We checked out the palace this time and wandered well into the backlots that weren't maintained. It must cost the government a fortune to maintain all these historical landmarks.
We visited Marie's cousin Joris for a while. He is close to Enghien. After that we headed back home and had supper. I tried a Hoegaarden Grande Cru. It reminded me of Coopers with its chewy bits in the bottom.
Patrice and family showed up after supper. This time we got to meet Kobe, the youngest. On Monday he had been visited with his mother's parents. Marie had given Amber, the daughter a tail which she loved and Kobe was given one as well. Amber had a sharks tail and Kobe chose a crocodile tail. Natalie, Patrice's wife liked the idea so took some photos of the other tails we had so she could make some herself. Marie had only ever found them at one place in Brisbane. For children of that age it is a very simple costume and with their active imaginations a cheap fun toy.
Wednesday - Belgian Castles (8/7)
We tried to leave early for the Ardennes in the south east and as usual didn't manage it. Along the way we stopped for camera batteries at a Colruyt store in Bierghes. It was a supermarket with warehouse style shelving and self service where you scan your own groceries before paying at another counter. We also stopped for petrol for the Peugot 206 at another self serve service station. You have to pay by card at the bowser, but you get petrol around .10 euros cheaper at 1.25 euros. Diesel was also cheaper at .93 euros.
After that an hour and half of amazing highways took us to the Ardennes. We stopped at the Chateau de Lavaux Sainte-Anne a castle of some note. It had 3 museums in it and a lot of the rooms in the castle were furnished and available for viewing. Because we had left late we arrived close to lunch so took a break half way through the tour to eat lunch in the restaurant. We were all pleasantly surprised the cost wasn't too high and even more surprised that the quality was exceptional as well. Gilbert and I had a Rochefort Trappist Beer with lunch. After lunch we continued the tour. One thing that truly amazed me was the size of the timbers and the amount of it inside the largest dome atop one of the spires.
After completing that castle tour we drove a little further into the Ardennes to visit another castle. It was build on a rock in steeper terrain, whereas the first was built on a flat with a moat around it. The displays in the 2nd castle were more formal in nature and contained more refined furniture and fittings but they were also roped off with security to prevent people touching them. There was also less to see so we finished viewing that one fairly quickly. It had a really good view of another castle on an adjacent ridge, that looked much more interesting with fabulous spires. Gilbert told us you used to be able to visit that one as well on the same entrance ticket but that it was now closed and in disrepair. It reminded me of the Disneyland castles.
We then drove onto the picturesque town of Dinant crammed onto the small piece of land between the river bank and cliff. I guess the Kangaroo point cliffs in Brisbane come close to the terrain but you need to scale up the cliff and the amount of land considerably. We parked the cars and strolled along the river back to the church at the base of the cliff. We had a quick look inside and then considered climbing to the 9th century citadel atop the cliffs. We were running out of time so passed as Gilbert said it would take over an hour to complete. There were an awful lot of steps to the top and they also a cable car setup going up.
On the way back we stopped to visit another of Marie's cousins, Alain and his family. He offered us some drinks - Chimay blue for me this time. Most of the others settled for coffee and pastries. Alaine was OK with the speaking English as he write scientific papers in the language. As a result his accent was fairly heavy but the grammar and structure was good and I had no trouble understanding him at all. We drove back in the rain to arrive home around 10:00pm - still light outside. Josee who had to work and had missed the outing had made apple turnovers for us. I am not fond of cooked apple but enjoyed one anyway. They seem to have a different variety of apple over here that is better for this sort of use.
Thursday - Bruges (9/7)
We visited a supermarket in the morning hoping to find another SD card as we had taken 365 photos in the previous day. Fail, but I did find a good selection beer so bought some. The better Trappist beers were just over a Euro in price and many were 0.88 or lower. I chose some Chimay Red, a couple of Westmalle, a couple of Duvell and some Floreval. The later was more of a brew specifically made for Delhaize, the supermarket.
We got back a bit after Josee had returned from work. We quickly had a bite for lunch and headed for Bruges. The traffic got pretty heavy close to Bruges so we crawled along for a bit. Because it is the 2nd most popular place in Belgium, after Brussels and has very narrow streets in the heart we parked at a parking station outside the city and bussed it in. You could walk it if you had to but the bus was free when you show your parking ticket.
We arrived in central city square around 15:00 and wandered around looking at the sights for a couple hours. There is a canal systems with boats that give guided tours. It would have taken a bit long so we just wandered around checking out the shops and old buildings. There were an awful lot of chocolate shops and lace shops, as Bruges is famous for both. We stopped at small cafe and had some chips with some sort of house beer that wasn't too bad. I bought some milk truffles in one of the chocolate shops on the way back to the square. Some of the shops had very different artistic shapes, including some that should be censored.
Bruges was very pretty and also very commercial. We got back late and had a Chimay red with a snack.
Friday - more relatives (10/7)
Josee and Gilbert were playing golf so we slept in a bit and then had a quick breakfast before heading off to see Yvette and Paul again. Marie found some paintings hanging on the wall that one of her relatives had done so she took photos of them. We had a home made cherry cake with coffee and Marie gave them some copies of her Mother's paintings. I missed most of the conversation as usual but also picked up a surprising amount. If I knew a few more french names for things I reckon I'd be understanding a lot more.
We stopped at a different patisserie on the way back home. We had lunch and then Josee and Gilbert arrived home. They grabbed a quick bite and Gilbert and I headed into Brussels to pick up another hire car. I ended up with another Toyota Auris. This one had done a few more kms and was a slightly lower optioned model, but still diesel powered. It seemed to have slightly more pickup that the previous one, perhaps because it was a bit looser with 25,000km on the odometer.
I got back to the house and pick up the rest of the family and us 5 headed to Beloeil to visit Sebastian and his family. The kids had been hoping to see a movie with him but we arrived too late to fit that in and as we had another appointment to visit another cousin later. Sebastian and his brothers, sisters and parents all play musical instruments, piano, clarinet, oboe, pan flute, xylophone to name a few. Seb played some music from the Lion King for us.
We arrived back for dinner and a beautiful tomato soup, followed by some ham steaks and home grown beans with new season potatoes from a local farm. We had a Floreval with the meal. I was a bit tired of visiting people as were the kids so we stayed at home and watched the DVD Subway. Marie, Josee and Gilbert visited another cousin, Bernadette.
Saturday - yet more relatives (11/7)
We had a visit in the morning from Caroline and here husband Maxime who had driven across from near Luxembourg. They brought a lot of food, beer and wine with them as well as some gifts for the children. We chatted with them and lunch as well. They had brought a special sort of meat pie with them which is local to their area. It was a bit like piroshki but much bigger. The meat had lots of spices in it and was encased in a bread like pastry.
The kids had almost an all day visit to Parc Paradiso with Seb. It is some sort of animal park/zoo so they only got to meet with Caroline for a small while. After Marie, Bernard and I headed for Tornai to meet Christiane the widow of Marie's father brother. She is in a nursing home now. Her son Daniel and his wife and daughter were there. Marie asked about another cousin who she hadn't been able to contact who lived near there. They gave us some directions.
We thought we could try and find it so headed there and didn't have too much trouble. On the way Seb rang and said they could drop the kids back at Bierghes. That meant we could spend a bit longer with the missing relatives. Corine and Bill and their 2 children live in a renovated shop in the main square of tiny village just outside of Tornai. When we arrived their son Antone opened the door. He had a very surprised look on his face when Marie told him where we were from. Bill was home and probably asleep as he surfaced a bit later and then madly began tidying the house. Corine was out visiting with her daughter but her son rang her immediately on the mobile so she soon turned up. Marie had never met her before. We were given a small performance on the small accordion.
We arrived back a bit late and quickly had dinner. We had one of the Orval beers that Caroline had brought. We didn't make it through dinner before the next lot of relatives showed up. Bernadette, her husband Nuncio, and Freddy her brother arrived. Nuncio brought his guitar and he played and sang us some songs as a lot of Sicilians can. Bernadette also played one more complex tune and he sang with her.
No comments:
Post a Comment